2013 Felt Edict Nine 3 Mountain Bikes

FIRST LOOK

FELT EDICT NINE 3

The 2013 Felt lineup for mountain bikes sees a completely revamped hard tail 29er family, along with the introduction of big wheels into the full-suspension Edict family with the Edict Nine 3 shown here and the revival of their long-travel 26er, the Compulsion.Newest Edict Series

After showing their mountain bikes at Sea Otter this year, Felt is clearly jumping into the super fast world of full-suspension 29ers. The Felt Edict models will consist of five options to choose from. They will vary from their high end Edict Nine LTD that is constructed out of Felt’s UHC Ultimate Plus Nano carbon fiber, the lowest end model the aluminum 60 and will retail for $2070 msrp.

The direction for Felt designers with all of these models was to create mountain bikes that blend climbing qualities that are efficient with a dose of confidence on the downhills.

For the complete Carbon Series, they all employ Felt’s minimal style FAST suspension design to keep the weight low while maintaining pedaling efficiency. While the designers also nailed it right on when they chose the specifications for the cockpit; a bit wider is the way to go!

The Edict FAST rear suspension. The definition of this is Felt Active Stay Technology, which utilizes the natural flexible properties of carbon that has been engineered into the carbon fiber swing-arm to not have to use dropout pivots. This is less complex and saves weight at the same time. This technology relies heavily on the exactness of its carbon layup to give it a big enough range of movement but still retain the torsional rigidity that aggressive mountain bike riders need when riding technical trails. So the FAST suspension is only available on the carbon fiber models.

The Edict Nine 3 is priced at a reasonable, $3629 USD – almost one-third the cost of what the Nine LTD hits the pocket book at, and is hard to believe just by looking at it. This frame is similar to the LTD, but it has been molded from the Felt UHC carbon. While the LTD as complete bike is a bit of a stretch at$9299. It’s frame though is constructed out of Felt’s most expensive Ultimate Nano layup. The model shown above is decked out with a two x ten drive train by way of SRAM’s X.9-X.7 mixture, while the front and rear suspension department is handled by Rock Shox. They set it up with a Rock Shox Recon Gold Solo Air front fork paired with a Rock Shox Monarch R rear shock. This rides claimed weight fall right in there around 28 pounds. Just for comparison purposes the LTD hits the scale at 24.1 lbs.